{"id":171,"date":"2007-09-09T18:00:12","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=171"},"modified":"2012-02-25T21:53:20","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T02:53:20","slug":"bss-137-rupert-thomson-ii-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/bss-137-rupert-thomson-ii-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupert Thomson II, Part One (BSS #137)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rupert Thomson is most recently the author of <i>Death of a Murderer<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/rupertthomson.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"rupertthomson\" width=\"450\" align=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4994\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-171-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=171-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo137.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:22 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>\n[This is the first of an in-depth, two-part conversation with Rupert Thomson, conducted over the course of two days.  The first part details primarily with <i>Death of a Murderer<\/i>.  The second part, which can be heard in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=172\">Show #138<\/a>, extends into his career.  Many thanks to Mr. Thomson for being extremely generous with his time for this conversation.]\n<p><b>Condition of Mr. Segundo:<\/b>  Trying to be careful about British accents.<\/p>\n<p><b>Author:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rupert_Thomson\">Rupert Thomson<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Billy Tyler as one of &#8220;society&#8217;s dustmen,&#8221; Mira Hindley, bridges and Ambrose Bierce&#8217;s &#8220;An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,&#8221; readers reading Thomson&#8217;s novels too fast, flashbacks, pitch-perfect similes, a momentary interlude for lunch, movie sound effects, getting used to being on the page, active behavior, metal bins, Thomson as a &#8220;morally outstanding&#8221; individual, filming in mortuaries, chance providing what a novelist needs, Percival and Arthurian namesakes, Old World patriarchal figures, the fixed quality of character names, protection from critical assessments, hopping around in genre, Billy Tyler&#8217;s homoerotic issues, gender, The Beatles&#8217;s &#8220;And Your Bird Can Sing,&#8221; Faulkner, Django Reinhardt&#8217;s large hands, characters who are extreme versions of the everyday, the possible ambiguity contained within Thomson&#8217;s endings, stones and millstones, snooker, being a police officer, truncated names and ellipses, MacGuffins, whether it is pigeons or chickens that come home to roost, and bland hotels.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/B><\/p>\n<p><b>Thomson:<\/b> As a novelist, you know there are &#8212; I wonder how many, I sometimes wonder how many decisions there are that you make in writing a novel.  I mean, I guess it probably goes into the millions.  But then I think about all the decisions you don&#8217;t make, where you simply trust what your intuition has given you, because, in the case of Newman &#8212; for instance, you just mentioned Peter Newman &#8212; I didn&#8217;t think twice about that name.  Newman&#8217;s a fairly ordinary name.  And I wanted just an ordinary, fairly solid &#8212; and, in fact, Susie, I chose that name because Susie, because Billy Tyler marries a girl called Susie Newman, and I sort of wanted to her have a sexy-sounding name.  A name that tripped off the tongue.  And then I liked the fact that she had become Sue Tyler.  You know, she had become dull.  As a result of having married.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4995\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-171-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=171-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo137.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:22 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rupert Thomson is most recently the author of Death of a Murderer. [This is the first of an in-depth, two-part conversation with Rupert Thomson, conducted over the course of two days. The first part details primarily with Death of a Murderer. The second part, which can be heard in Show #138, extends into his career. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4996\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-171-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=171-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo137.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo137.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:22 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1084],"tags":[16,73,9,10,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}